Volume 27, Number 3, 2025 Special Issue: Language and Literacies as Joyful Possibilities

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This case study explores the thematic thread of joy within the patterned quilt (Dyson & Genishi, 2005) of a longitudinal university-based summer literacy camp (for ages 4 to 12) led by pre-service teachers. We explore pre-service teachers’ roles as curriculum makers in relation to examples of negotiated curriculum leading to shared joyful literacy learning.

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In this study, Ontario kindergarten educators (n=10) describe their tensions related to approaches for early literacy learning and how enhanced self-efficacy supported their navigation for blending direct and play-based instructional approaches for early literacy instruction. Following design-based research methodology, educators participated in interviews and professional learning conversations to identify their needs for teaching beginning reading. Findings include: 1) collaborating with educators and the researcher/facilitator brought participants joy, 2) changing messages from education leaders created challenges, 3) self-efficacy beliefs increased, 4) educators noticed a change in the types of play opportunities that supported literacy learning. Implications and recommendations are discussed for researchers, educators, and school board leaders.

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Family engagement is a strong predictor of children’s academic success and communication is a key component of engagement (McWayne et al., 2016). Yet, little research has focused on families’ and schools’ communication practices. Using a lens of literacy as a social practice, communication is described as social and cultural and not a universal skill-set. That at a basic level, literacy is effective communication. This inquiry focused on the three K-12 teachers and considers the joyful opportunities afforded in their home-school communication. By engaging in Narrative Inquiry, we unravel the participant teachers’ experiences and preferences in communicating with families through a lens of joy and consider the barriers faced when maintaining joy. Key moments of joy were sparked when providing positive communication, developing systems/strategies for continual communication, and in building relationships.

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This paper details an example of teacher practices that drew upon multiliteracies theory and pedagogy to engage in reflective pedagogical practice and enact transformative teaching and learning in a grade 8 English Language Arts classroom in Manitoba. The meaning of design is discussed, and the learning by design framework is investigated with a focus on knowledge processes (Cope & Kalantzis, 2015). Findings affirm teachers as designers, recognize students as creative meaning makers, and celebrate teacher empowerment, student agency, and creativity.

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Literacy education can play a vital role in positive identity formation across the life span. This paper conceptualizes the influence of transmodality in the psychological process of self-authorship. Utilizing a method of narrative inquiry to revisit a course on life-long learning and meaning-making, we explore an example of transformative change in how one student came to trust their voice as a learner and educator. Our findings show that humanizing pedagogy that makes space for vulnerability to revisit life events through different modes and media affords opportunities to revise understandings of the past and envision more positive futures. The study contributes theory and examples of how processes involved in transmodal meaning-making may help young people and adults discover more joyful ways of being.

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Lors du précongrès de l’Association canadienne en langue et littératie (ACCLL) à Montréal en 2024, je partageais mes expériences joyeuses vécues lors de mon séjour en Europe où j’ai passé une année sabbatique de 2022 à 2023. J’ai constaté que ces expériences ont eu un effet transformateur et contribuent toujours à mon épanouissement professionnel (et personnel) en tant que professeure en didactique du français et des arts dans le contexte minoritaire de la Saskatchewan. Pendant mon séjour sabbatique en Europe, j’ai profité de chaque instant, j’ai pris le temps de ralentir la cadence et de vivre pleinement chaque jour en gardant un esprit ouvert à toutes les possibilités. La marche et la lenteur m’ont offert l’occasion d’apprendre, de réfléchir et de vivre l’instant présent et d’être en meilleure relation avec la terre et moi-même, les autres personnes et plus-que-humains (Donald, 2023 ; Judson, 2019 ; Springgay & Truman, 2018). J’étais immergé dans les diverses « paysages linguistiques » (Araújo e Sá, Carinhos & Melo-Pfeifer, 2022), je me suis plongée dans la vie culturelle et artistique des lieux et j’ai trouvé un sens d’appartenance dans ces communautés. Lors de mes promenades dans différentes villes et régions de France, en Belgique et dans les pays limitrophes, j’ai pris le temps d’apprécier la beauté de la nature, la vie et comment tout est interrelié sur la planète et j’ai éprouvé un plus lien fort avec la terre et cela a suscité l’envie de partager ces expériences avec mes étudiants. Mes rencontres enrichissantes et le fait de prendre du temps pour réfléchir m’ont permis d’apprécier et d’apprendre des approches pédagogiques créatives qui valorisent la richesse de la diversité linguistique et culturelle. En partageant mon expérience, j’espère mettre en lumière la valeur de la lenteur, l’apprentissage par la marche et l’importance d’avoir une ouverture d’esprit afin de « vivre poétiquement » (Leggo, 2005) d’être épanouie et d’apprécier la beauté et la diversité de ce monde.

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During the Language and Literacy Researchers of Canada (LLRC) pre-conference in Montreal in 2024, I shared my joyful and transformative experiences visiting in Europe, during a sabbatical year 2022-2023, and how these have contributed to fulfilment and joy in my teaching (and life) as a professor of Minority Language Education (French) in Saskatchewan. During my sabbatical year, I focused on slowing down to live each day open to possibilities. Walking and slowness offered me the chance to learn, reflect and to live in the present moment, thus facilitating a stronger connection to the earth, to myself, and to all my relations, human and more than human (Donald, 2023; Judson, 2019; Springgay & Truman, 2018. I was immersed in diverse “linguistic landscapes” (Araújo e Sá, Carinhos & Melo-Pfeifer, 2022) and communities where I found a sense of community and belonging. While spending a year walking, travelling and reflecting in various locations throughout France and Belgium, and many neighbouring countries, I took time to appreciate beauty in nature and in life and how everything is interconnected on this planet, enabling me to feel a stronger connection to the earth which has inspired me to share these experiences with my students. Through walking and many enriching encounters, taking the time to reflect allowed me to gain a greater appreciation of creative approaches to pedagogy which value the richness of linguistic and cultural diversity. By sharing my experience, I hope to shed light on the value of slowness, and the importance of having an open mind in order to “live poetically” (Leggo, 2005) and fully appreciate the beauty and diversity of this world.

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In my research I explore how practices of eco-poetic inquiry can support learners in developing ecological literacy by deepening their relationships with the Earth. Using examples from courses I teach in language and literacies at the secondary level in a teacher education program in Saskatchewan, I examine how eco-poetic practices also foster joy in this learning. Engaging with eco-poetic inquiries that ask students to describe the connections they have with local environments is a way of asking them to re-examine the relationships they have with the more than human world that can lead to a restoration of healthy relationships with local places.

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In this paper, I reflect on the past decade as an educator and graduate student to highlight the joy that accompanied my shifting understanding of literacy. I conducted an autobiographical narrative inquiry and used selections from blog entries and graduate coursework in order to reflect on my “moments of turning”. I begin with a logocentric understanding of literacy as a white settler in two Indigenous communities, but over time embrace a multimodal, embodied, emergent, place-based, and more-than-human conception of literacies within a context of the climate and nature emergency. This conception learns from and with Indigenous ways of knowing rooted in ecology, relationships, and the land. I argue that this understanding of literacies brings joy and opens possibilities in a precarious world.